How long does it take for design ideas to travel?

Like anything else in life, the travel of design ideas and products can be rather serendipitous. Luck, timing and the right alignment of people play a great part. I revisited this thought because I just ran into my favorite product that I discovered in the Passagen section of Design Week in Cologne in the winter of 2002 on 3rings a contemporary product blog for design and architecture. The original designed by Tilo Gnausch, that I saw in a gallery was shown free-floating directly against a mirror. The "Ammonite" sink is indeed a magnificent piece of sculpture, I’m surprised it took this long to make it across the pond.

The sink is made of concrete and distributed by Bagno Sasso. In Cologne, the original design was in basalt and was paired with a simple but stunning basalt shower. While the sink took 8 years to be noticed in the American market, basalt became an important interior finish material within just a few years. Currently, the sink is also available in what appears to be Blue Jura Limestone, but it is hard to tell from the pictures. Actually it is not clear to me that it is even available, as the supplier is Swiss - maybe someone just saw a picture of it and wanted to blog about it.

Basalt took off here within 2-3 years, but the sink - I still don't have an answer to my own question of "How long?"